This book wasn't too bad. Nice back story, fast enough pace for most of the book though there were a few slow places in the beginning. Based on ancient Jewish tradition mingled with a present day religious cult there were enough clues that I had it mostly figured out, but there was a twist that I hadn't counted on that made the ending quite enjoyable. Enjoyable. ( )

So I've finally finished my Sam Bourne binge-read. For the finale, I read his first book last, following reading "The Last Testament" and "The Final Reckoning". Like his other novels, this tale draws heavily on historic and religious references. It features an amazing immersion into the world of the Hasidic Jews in New York. It's probably the strongest of his books, despite being the first.

The general story - a newspaper reporter uncovers a series of seemingly unrelated murders. His wife is kidnapped and he is receiving cryptic text messages from an unknown individual. The journalist has unwittingly become the central character in an apocalyptic scenario of amazing scale and imagination.

The Righteous Men is an entertaining and interesting read.

This is an OK thriller along the lines of The Da Vinci Code (yes - another one). The cataclysm in this book is based on an ancient Jewish tradition regarding the Righteous men who support the world. Will Monroe - a journalist on the New York Times, gets caught up in the race toward the end of the world when his wife is kidnapped, and it suddenly falls to him to try and rescue her and ultimately everything. Using his knack of getting into trouble, his tendency to not listen to anyone, and his trusty and tolerant ex-girlfriend, he embarks on a two day roller coaster ride to save the world.

I don't think I was quite convinced by it. It was exciting, but put-down-able, and I had figured out the 'twist' long before it happened. I do think this formula is getting to the point where it has run its course. ( )

Another book written on the back of the Da Vinci Code, but not as good in my opinion. There were some glaring 'Duh' moments (mostly from the main character) eg. he spent several hours spent trying to work out what a text message meant before his ex-girlfriend said 'Why don't you try replying to it?' Duh. ( )

The tag-line for this book was something like "Someone is killing good men... Why?" It became a bit of a joke on the trip. If you didn't guess who was behind it all by about a third of the way through, I would check for your pulse. I enjoyed the Jewish aspect of the book, made a nice change, but the conspiracy and ancient secret facets weren't really there or as fully developed as I would have liked. It was more a lot of running around.

It passed the time and it gave us something to crack up about.
Originally posted August 5, 2006